foot he kicked the image into the street. Then with a shriek of laughter he
staggered away out of sight.

Miss Terry found herself trembling with indignation. The idea! He had
kicked the Christmas Angel,--the very Angel that Tom had hung on their
tree! It was sacrilege, or at least--Fiddlestick! Miss Terry's mind was
growing confused. She had a sudden impulse to rescue the toy from being
trampled into filthiness. The fire was better than that.

She hurried down the steps into the street, forgetting her shawl. She
sought in the snow and snatched the pink morsel to safety. Straight to the
fire she carried it, and once more held it to the flames. But again she
found it impossible to burn the thing. Once, twice, she tried. But each
time something seemed to clutch back her wrist. At last she shrugged
impatiently and laid the Angel on the mantelpiece beside the square old
marble clock, which marked the hour of half-past eight.

"Well, I won't burn it to-night," she reflected. "Somehow, I can't do it
just now. I don't see what has got into me! But to-morrow I will. Yes,
to-morrow I will."

She sat down in the armchair and fumbled in the old play box for the
remaining scraps. There were but a few meaningless bits of ribbon and
gauze, with the end of a Christmas candle, the survivor of some past
festival, burned on some tree in the past. All these but the last she
tossed into the fire, where they made a final protesting blaze. The
candle-end fell to the floor unnoticed.

"There! That is the last of the stuff," she exclaimed with grim
satisfaction, shaking the dust from her black silk skirt. "It is all gone